Yusef Salaam and the Exonerated Five say the country can’t go backwards

The national spotlight was on the Exonerated Five when New York City Council Member Yusef Salaam, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson and Raymond Santana appeared on the Democratic National Convention’s primetime stage Thursday night. (The fifth member of the group, Antron McCray, rarely makes public appearances and did not attend the convention.)

In 1989, the five Black men, then teenagers, were imprisoned for a crime they did not commit. At the time, Donald Trump paid $85,000 to run full-page advertisements in four New York newspapers calling for the five young men to receive the death penalty. The five men spent a combined 41 years in prison, serving sentences of between six and 13 years each. Their convictions were finally overturned in 2002 with DNA evidence and a guilty confession from the true perpetrator.

At the DNC, Rev. Al Sharpton introduced the five men that he proudly “fought for” back in the 1980s. “I referred to them then – they were known as the Central Park Five. Now they are the Exonerated Five,” Sharpton said. Salaam, who was imprisoned for nearly seven years, now represents Council District 9 in Harlem. During his DNC speech, he said Trump “wanted us dead” and “never changed, and he never will.” Wise, now an activist, said his youth had been “stolen” and described how the five men had to face the screams of adults when they entered court each day.

Following their time on stage, Salaam, Wise, Richardson and Santana sat down with City & State to discuss the lasting impact of the years they spent in prison for crimes they did not commit and Trump’s role in their wrongful convictions. The four men all expressed strong support for Vice President Kamala Harris and argued that she is best positioned to enact necessary change and uphold justice.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell us about your speech. What message did you feel was most important to relay to the audience?

Yusef Salaam: Our speech was the collective to show the impact, as Korey said, of the 41 years that we, amongst all of us, spent in prison for crimes that we didn't commit. We needed to show the world the impact of what Trump has done to us and will continue to do. I mean, the beauty of it is that we're still here, that we're still standing, that I get the opportunity to be an elected official and to write laws and to make sure that I say “never again” out of my office. That's what this is all about – that I have my voice, the voices of my collective brothers, right here with us. 

How has your experience as one of the Exonerated Five shaped your political views? How has it shaped which presidential ticket you’re supporting this year?

Kevin Richardson: We think that Kamala Harris is the most equipped for this job. We can't go backwards. So we need to back her up, especially being the Democratic field that we are. We need to see someone that we can relate to, and that's Kamala Harris. So why not? This is the time where us, the young and old, must come together and make this happen. 

Salaam: (Trump) said he wants to give police officers immunity. That means that the young woman who was shot in the face and murdered, nothing happens. Breonna Taylor, nothing happens. Sandra Bland. It is tragic when something bad happens like that. We want our officers to be not only held accountable, but to hold themselves to the higher standards of protecting and serving. 

So the beauty of understanding what happened to us politically is that, according to the politics, they said that slavery will be allowed to be alive (as) punishment (for) a crime. So they took us and reverted us back into a state of slavery, I don't want to say involuntary servitude, because in other countries, that's what that meant, but in America…my goodness. So the fact of the matter is that all of the things that we are fighting for, who better than us? I think it was Raymond that said that we became the modern day civil rights movement. We became part of that modern day civil rights movement. We are now inside of that. We are members of that. 

And then you ask, “Who are we voting for?” Right? I mean, Donald Trump took out $85,000 page ads calling for the death penalty for Black and Latino kids who were 14 to 16 years old. And so he gave us no choice. He set the standard. He drew the line, so at the end of the day, we can never vote for him. I find it shameful. When you think about the reasons why people would vote for Trump in the first place, they say things like, “well, he gave us money.” Civically, we don't even understand how the money came to us. Donald Trump did not give us money. The House (of Representatives and the U.S. Senate) decided to do something, Donald Trump signed his name. We need to understand that. We need to go back to the basics, oftentimes, to understand how the politics affect our lives and that who we vote into office means we get the opportunity to understand that democracy is on the ballot. That is what it's all about. Kamala Harris will deliver democracy back to the American people. 

How do you respond to critics who say that your personal experiences are being used to further a political agenda?

Salaam: We should, and we do, stand to serve and stand to lead. Politics is warfare without bloodshed, even though my brother Korey Wise was maimed many times for crimes he didn't commit. But when you think about who better than a people, the brotherhood, the thing that we formed like Voltron? We're able to come together and say, “Look, how can we best affect, how can we best serve, how can we best lead in these times right now?” We were built for these times. We were bred for these times. We went through it so that no one else would have to and unfortunately, we know that we became the modern day Scottsboro Boys. We don't want another Central Park Five.

What was it like being one of the only city-level elected officials with a primetime speaking slot at the DNC?

Salaam: I didn't know that. I'm humble, I'm honored and I'm thankful to have shared this moment with my brothers. That's what that's all about. I'm so honored.

What does it mean to you to go from being a teenager wrongfully convicted for a crime to now being recognized on this national stage?

Raymond Santana: From lived experience of what we've been through, nobody would expect us to be here, very unlikely, but to be here in the flesh to show the people that we can prevail from the things that we've been through. These things are written in Hollywood, but this is a real-life story that happened in Harlem. We're still here to tell our story, because if they had it up to them, we would be hung from a tree somewhere. So this is very important to let people know that we did go through this and it still exists. So through our lived experience, we must continue to spread the word to other people that you can come out of this. Not unscathed, because we always say we have these indelible scars, but we’re here from that. 

Salaam: What better than history to be our best teacher? That's what this lived experience is all about: Korey being able to survive, to hold on long enough for the real perpetrator to finally see him. Look at that. Look at that. (points at Korey’s scars.)

Korey Wise (showing scars on his forearm): All this come from him. Battle wounds from Trump.

Salaam: That’s the harm that he experienced in prison, all of them battle scars. That's history. Nobody should be able to have to go through that. It's one thing when you say “the spike wheels of justice,” but it's another thing to say we should not, will not, go through the spike wheels of justice against innocent people. Far too many. I sit on the board of the Innocence Project. We work with the Innocence Project to see, in some of the most egregious accounts, someone doing 40-plus years for a crime they didn't commit. One individual. We're now turning into our 50s. Now, 40-something years? Wow. 

What impact do you hope your participation in the Democratic National Convention will have on voters and the overall election narrative?

Salaam: I'm hoping that if you were uncommitted, I'm hoping that if you were a Trumper, just because you thought it was cool, that you have decided to vote for democracy, to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. That is my hope. I'm hoping that that is why we stood up, because we wanted to make sure that they could count. Even though our brother Antron McCray is not here, he's here with us because we're fighting for him. We're bringing him with us all day, all day.

What are your thoughts on the Uncommitted movement and the war in Gaza?

Salaam: We have to have a ceasefire, point blank, period, full stop – not full stop – we have to make sure that we bring (home) the people who have been kidnapped because we have to have a restoration of balance. The history that has been told in the current present has not been told in full. We only catch a glimpse of the last few years. We don't know about the past 70-plus years of the horrors in that land. I know about them because my mother told me. My mother's not Palestinian, but my mother's in her seventies and she teaches me truth and justice all day everywhere. 

So when I think about those individuals who are receiving the worst of the worst, who are non-combatants, how can a baby be a combatant? But yet we still see their bodies being pulled from the rubble, as a response. So at the end of the day, yes, we need the people who have been kidnapped to be brought home, and we need a complete lasting ceasefire, point blank. 

What do you think of Randy Mastro, whom Mayor Eric Adams has nominated to be the city’s next corporation counsel?

Salaam: So we haven’t yet discussed that. I really don’t have a comment.

Is there anything else you would like to add about your speech, your position on the City Council or the election in November?

Salaam: I want everybody to know, to know without a doubt, with certainty: no participation is participation. You have to vote. You have to vote! I'm not telling you who to vote for. I know who I'm voting for. The choice is clear. I want to make sure that democracy continues in America. I want to go from living the American nightmare to living the American dream again. I want to go from surviving to thriving, getting out of the margins of poverty, knowing that the human potential that's in all of us as a people is allowed to be brought forth, and forward, so that by the time we reach the end of our lives, we will have lived a full life, right, so that we could die having given all.